Neisseria gonorrhoeae is a bacterial pathogen. There is currently no effective vaccine against N. gonorrhoeae infection. It is an object of the invention to provide proteins and nucleic acid useful in vaccine study and/or manufacture.
N. gonorrhoeae is related to N. meningitidis. Sequence data are now available for serogroup B of meningococcus [e.g. WO99/24578; WO99/36544; WO99/57280; WO00/22430; WO00/66791; Tettelin et al. (2000) Science 287:1809-1815] and also for serogroup A [Parkhill et al. (2000) Nature 404:502-506]. It is a further object of the invention to provide proteins and nucleic acid useful in distinguishing between gonococcus and meningococcus and, in particular, between gonococcus and serogroup B meningococcus.